STAFF REPORT
NORTHERN VALLEY PRESS
Closter Public Schools are closed today as the community morns the death of Hillside Elementary School Principal Alfred F. Baffa.
A funeral for the educator—who a report said died of a heart attack while recovering from prostate cancer surgery—is being held at 1 p.m. at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Tenafly. He was 61.
His family requested that memorial donations be made to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, according to his obituary, saying the organization “gave him his life back, and allowed him to ‘borrow’ another 35 years to spend with those who loved him and needed him most.”
“At 27, he was diagnosed with AML, and sent to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant (cutting edge technology for first-round remission leukemia at the time) after discovering that, miraculously, his only brother was a perfect match,” his obituary said. “After that, he always joked that he felt like a cat with nine lives, but said that he didn’t want to know which life he was on. In more serious conversations, he said that he felt he was living on borrowed time. That feeling always caused him to appreciate life to the fullest, and put his whole heart into whatever he was doing, personally or professionally.”
Baffa’s obituary said “he found his calling in imparting his knowledge to others, and he was as happy to teach as his students were to learn from him.”
Baffa is survived by his wife, Sue, his daughter and son-in-law, Adrienne and Matthew and their daughter, Aurora, his parents, Gemma and Al, and his brother, Anthony.
MORE FROM NEWS12 NJ: